


There For You

by Greenspoons



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Gen, Thunderblink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 10:38:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12792804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenspoons/pseuds/Greenspoons
Summary: Clarice goes to comfort John as he mourns the loss of a brother.





	There For You

**Author's Note:**

> The latest episode brought on so much feels, not just for Thunderblink but for Reed too

John tries his damnedest to hold it all in when they get back to headquarters. He could sense Reed doing the same when they got out of their ride without a word, both not looking each other in the eye. 

Too damned much has happened in the span of a day with none of them anticipating how broken it has made them. Right now, they are each carrying their own pain and they know, without a doubt that making eye contact with the other would mean seeing more of the same grief reflected back at them.  

Reed quickly makes his way to his family, and John watches him go, thinking that the man was lucky to have people who would always be there for him. 

He turns around, heading towards where his team are likely still hard at work, intending to check the progress they'd made. He certainly hopes that there will be some good news on their front. 

John learns that they now have a location for Trask Industries and a glimpse of the mutant army at their disposal. His hands curl into fists at his sides, but he keeps his face neutral. 

"I've told Lorna that it's not a good idea to take the fight to Trask but she insists that we beat them at their own game. There's a 95.8 percent chance that we wouldn't make it out of there alive," Sage tells him. 

When he finally nods after a protracted silence, he feels like a marionette whose strings has been pulled. John doesn't, couldn't hear her over the red in his vision. 

"What about the mutant we brought in?" John asks, suddenly forceful. 

"She held on long enough for us to ask her some questions. And she's gone now." 

"You mean dead." he says flatly.

"Yes," Sage says before her eyes narrow in his direction, studying him. "Did something happen?"

He swallows the lump in his throat, unable to say the words aloud. They deserve to know what happened to Gus but he just couldn't tell them that he'd let his best friend die again. "It's been a long day," he pushes his fingers at his temples. "I'm going to call it a night." 

It is uncharacteristic of John to turn in so early, Sage thinks to herself. But maybe he has a point. She's been hard at work processing all the data stored in the hard drives since they got their hands on it. If she is being honest, she could really do with more sleep right now. 

John sits at the edge of his bed, unfolding the photo of Gus and him that they'd taken after their first tour together. The photo was bisected with deep fold lines from years of being tucked in his wallet. 

Usually when he takes it out, it was to revisit a happy memory of them. They started as brothers on the front lines and then they just began ending up in each other's important moments when they got back. 

Looking at Gus now, it fills him with a howling sense of emptiness. Seeing Gus at the warehouse again had made him hopeful that he could still help Gus and get his friend back. He wanted to believe that not all was lost, that mutants still had a fighting chance against this new threat, and Gus would be key in achieving that future he envisioned.  

He has seen a very real chance at redemption, to make up for having left Gus to die the first time around. But whatever opportunity he thought he had is now long gone. He has failed Gus again, and things are so much worse for it. 

_My brother died today._

The scene plays in his mind's eye again and it's really all he can do to right now to see Gus for just one more time. 

There is clarity in his gaze and conscience as his breathing becomes increasingly labored. Even if he hadn't wheezed out his apology with his dying breath, John knew how truly sorry he was and it was enough. He couldn’t shake the image of Gus, burnt almost half to death, looking thoroughly defeated as he had ever seen him.

When Clarice pops her head into John’s room, she doesn’t find him there. Instead, she finds an aged photograph of him and his army friend, Gus on the floor. One look and she knows that something terrible has happened during his little trip with Strucker.   

_If Reed has anything to do with this, I swear I’ll portal him into a thousand pieces._

She storms down the hallway, worry fueling her every step as she searches for him. She hears herself asking if anyone had seen John but none of them are of any help to her. 

Eventually, Clarice finds him in the little clearing within the forest that surrounds the old bank. She wishes to not find him there because it could only mean one thing.

John has his knees drawn to his chest, eyes staring forlornly ahead at the wood marker stuck into the cold, hard earth. At the sight that greets her, Clarice walks slowly towards him. There are no prizes for guessing whose grave it was as she recalls him mentioning it to her after their run-in with Gus.

She sits down beside him, crossing her legs. "John?" Clarice says his name tenderly. "You can talk to me. But if you don't want to, that's okay too."  
  
Clarice waits for his reaction and for lack of anything else she could do to comfort him, she takes his large hand in hers. With her other hand, she rubs soothing circles on the back of his. It takes her a second to realize that there are traces of soil caked under his fingernails.

"They found us," John grounds out finally. "We all lost today." 

 _We?_ She wonders to herself but John seems to have read her mind. 

"Reed's father died saving us." He still doesn't look at her, not daring to see what he will find there. 

At that, Clarice swallows thickly, feeling the rush of guilt that floods her for thinking that Reed could have had a hand in what happened. 

"Tell me about Gus." Clarice says, reining the conversation back in because she knows how close they are and it would honor the memory of his best friend. 

“He never backs down from anything,” John says slowly, and she can hear the effort it takes for him to say as much. “He thinks it makes him cool, makes him deserving of being a Marine more than anyone else.”

“Sounds to me like the exact opposite of you, Proudstar.”

Something in her tone must have made him decide to look at her now. As their eyes meet, she sees in him a despair that she has never seen before. Clarice is so used to seeing him as the invincible leader that everyone looks up to for leadership and protection that it is easy to forget that even the strongest have their vulnerabilities.

“I don’t deserve to be his best friend. I let him die again today.”

Instinctively, she reaches over and pulls him to her. His chin rests on her shoulder with a heaviness that feels familiar and welcoming.

He has seen her when she discovers her family has been slaughtered by Sentinel Services, and now it is her turn to give him a shoulder to cry on. “Shhh. Things have to hit rock bottom before it gets better.” Clarice knows she is no Mr Miyagi with all the positive bullshit so she plucks the saying out from a distant memory. 

For the first time in her life, she wants it to not be mere positive poppycock. Someone has got to come up with that saying because they’ve experienced it themselves right?

She winds her arms around him, holding him to her. One of her hands reaches over to smooth his hair and that is when she feels the dust on his hair. She guesses there must have been an explosion of some sort and he has yet to wash his hair.

Clarice feels him brushing his cheek against the shoulder of her tank top but some of the dampness transfers to her skin.  

“Look, you can just cry as much as you want. I won’t tell a soul if that makes it any better.”

John blinks, still valiantly holding the tears back.

He is John fucking Proudstar and much too proud to lose it in front of Clarice. 

“John,” she says his name again, very seriously this time. “If you can’t even let yourself cry for him, you must be a really lousy best friend.” 

His arms tighten around Clarice in response, and he lets the tears fall, hot and heavy. After a while, the sobs begin to rack his body quietly.

She would be his anchor, and him hers.


End file.
